of sentiment, and the exquisite mixture in their proceedings of tact,
calculation, and geniality.

* * * * *

THE TRUE BASIS.


Never at any stage of American history was there such a crisis of ideas
as at present, and never was there such urgent necessity of setting
promptly, vigorously and clearly before the people the great and new
principles which this crisis is bringing to life. So vast are the issues
involved, so tremendous their inevitable consequences, that we acquit of
exaggeration the statesman who, in comparing even the gradual unfolding
of the mighty past with this our present, exclaimed, 'Now is the first
of the world's progress.'[A]

[Footnote A: Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson.]

The reader is doubtless perfectly familiar with the fact that in the
battle between the North and the South two opposite principles are
involved,--the same which have been at the bottom of all wars for
freedom, from the beginning of time. The one party believes that one
portion of society must flourish at the expense of another part, of a
permanently sunken class; while the other holds that history proves that
the lot of all persons in a commonwealth is capable of being gradually
ameliorated, and that in any case it is our sacred duty to legislate for
the poor, on this basis, by allowing them equal rights, and making every
exertion to extend the best blessings of education to them, and open to
every man, without distinction, every avenue of employment for which he